Dallas: Dumbass Central

I deal with skads, literally a force, of barely literate people who can't keep their moronic thoughts to themselves. Every day, as I read the crap spewing from panicked and angry people, I'm reminded of a saying: "Opinions are like assholes -- everyone has one and they're all shitty."

But what depresses me even more than reading these diatribes and bullshit is that these people vote. They vote without thinking, without reading and without knowing what they are voting for/against. They vote randomly, they vote haphazardly, and worst of all, they vote early and often.

It's people like this that often complain about confusing ballot language when so many websites, newspapers and magazines have spent so many hours and dollars spelling it out for them. If they would only pick up a copy, read about it and THEN decide ... This, however, is asking far to much from the barely literate people of Dallas.

I, on the other hand (that is attached to a body with feet firmly planted in reality), did so much research into my vote. I spent oodles of time looking into all of the state constitutional propositions, into Dallas' Prop. 1, weighing both sides and sometimes even debating with friends. I made my decision like it was a crucial one, one that deserved the respect and intention that our civic duty implies. In this case, I am rare. Shit, who am I trying to kid? I'm facing extinction.

As a matter of fact, I feel that uninformed voters, the confused ones that were unsure of how to vote on Dallas' Prop. 1, the Trinity Referendum, were the deciding factor. There was only a 6 percent margin in the election. If the vote-yes-against-the-toll road campaign had better informed 4 percent of the voters, if they had kept these morons from bubbling in the wrong oval, then they would have won.

Heck, I don't know if I really care about who won or lost in the Trinity vote. It was a poorly planned but well-executed campaign of confusion. The engineering group designing the contentious toll road that was to pass through the levees of the Trinity River (a dicey situation at best) hadn't even finalized the plans. Their estimates for what the road would cost had margins of error at 20 to 30 percent! That's insane! Why are we voting to approve a plan for a road that doesn't even exist?!

There is a chance that the establishment's preferred road design between the levees will never get government approval, and it might never be built. but by golly, we're going to spend $2 million that Dallas can't afford to have an election on a road that hasn't even been fully designed yet! We can't afford a $2 million election on a road that doesn't exist when we're spending so much money on administrative costs for a city council that can't repair the roads we already have!

I really wonder if any other cities are so frustrating. I wonder if there is anything such as common-sense politics.